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US regulators have decided to spread Havana award rights among eight operators – a mix of global full service airlines, medium frills low cost carriers and ULCCs. Unsurprisingly, given the concentration of Cuban Americans residing in the region, South Florida features prominently in the tentative award approvals.

In theory, the DoT’s proposed route structure ensures that customers travelling to Havana have access to a wider range of fare prices and product offerings. In many respects the agency had little choice but to accommodate as many airlines as possible for service to Havana – in order to ensure that consumers had an array of service providers as scheduled air service resumes between the US and Cuba.

There may be some quibbles regarding the tentative route awards to Havana, but the route composition proposed by the DoT is not likely to change drastically. The agency’s route dispersal reflects certain expectations that the agency would institute a certain level of competitive diversity on new services to Havana.

(This is Part 1 in a series examining US-Cuba route awards. Part 2 will examine markets other than Havana)

Efforts by Spirit Airlines to create some pricing traction in the US domestic market during the early high travel season during 2Q2016 have been foiled, largely by Southwest Airlines. The result was continued weakening of yields for the airline, a metric that has been a mainstay for Spirit during the last couple of years. The airline’s double-digit yield decline slightly worsened from 1Q2016 to 2Q2016.

Spirit is forecasting some improvement in the US revenue environment in 3Q2016 as the airline starts to lap the onset of pricing dilution in the US market that started in mid-2015, and as its own capacity slows in comparison with 2Q2016.

The airline is also making network moves in late 2016 to reflect its new strategy of adding mid-size markets that are less competitive. Spirit is making a push from a new market – Akron-Canton – and is also expanding from Orlando. At the same time, Spirit is exiting markets featuring a mix of low and high levels of competition as it works to change the structure of its network, now that larger airlines are more wilful in matching the ULCC’s fares.